Mission Journal: Media under growing pressure in Turkey

Turkey is awash in media. The newsstands of Istanbul are
buried under some 35 dailies of every format and political stripe. The airwaves
are thick with TV channels and Internet penetration is tracking an economy
growing at Chinese speed. Yet quantity does not equal quality. Nor does the
array of titles mean diversity and freedom of expression is blossoming in a
country that is seeking to join the European Union.

The military may be back in barracks but together with its "Kemalist" ultra-nationalist
and secular allies, the "deep
state" as it is known, is still able to intimidate and prosecute critical
reporters.

The moderate Islamist government of Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan has clipped the army's political wings during its decade in
power. Reporters can now criticize generals and write more freely if still
cautiously about the country's oppressed Kurdish minority. But in the past four
years Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have resorted to nationalist
tactics by using vague defamation laws and sweeping anti-terrorism statutes to
rein in not only traditional targets such as leftist and Kurdish journalists journalist
but also government critics in the mainstream media.

Caught between these two forces are news outlets whose very
ownership structure makes them prey to political pressure. Most newspapers and
TV stations are owned by a handful of conglomerates whose business interests
such as public contracts, construction, finance, tourism, and
telecommunications make them wary of promoting serious investigative reporting
into powerful people and institutions.

In interviews with some 20 journalists, publishers, and
academics across the political spectrum the picture emerges that press freedom
in Turkey is under increasing threat despite the advances made since the dark
days of military rule. Where that threat comes from is a matter of debate,
especially among Istanbul's media elite, which is deeply divided along partisan
political lines.

"Last year things in Turkey changed for the better," said
Salih Memecan, president of the Media
Association, a press freedom and journalism training group comprising some
24 media outlets, several sympathetic to the AKP. "We are living in a more demilitarized society
and the media are more diversified."

"Things have changed over the past 10 years," Ferai Tınç,
president of the Freedom
for Journalists Platform, which groups 14 journalist associations and
unions, noted wryly. "I can now write about the Kurds but can't write about
Erdogan."

Kurdish journalists, of course, complain that they still
can't work freely, no matter which Turkish political grouping wields power.

Until this year, Erdogan's growing anti-media rhetoric was
largely ignored in the West. Washington saw its Muslim NATO ally as a
moderating influence in a roiling Middle East; Europe welcomed the beginnings
of political and economic reform that followed Ankara's opening of EU accession
talks in 2005.

But the arrest of two leading investigative reporters, Ahmed
Şık and Nedim Şener, has caused waves beyond the Bosphorus.

On March 3, anti-terrorist police in Istanbul raided the
homes of some 12 journalists, writers, and academics and seized notes,
computers, and the unpublished manuscript of "The Imam's Army," a book that Şık
was writing on the Gülen Islamic
movement, which is close to the AKP.

Chief prosecutor Zekeriya Öz said the journalists were held
not because of their journalism but based on evidence that cannot be published
because of the confidentiality of an ongoing investigation into the "Ergenekon"
conspiracy, an alleged nationalist military plot to overthrow the government
first uncovered in 2007. Şık, who works for the magazine Nokta, has devoted his
career to investigating the shadowy network of military officers and
ultra-nationalist bureaucrats known as the deep state. Erdogan compared Şık's
book to a bomb.

"Today it requires a special kind of courage to criticize
the government, especially since the arrest of Şık and Şener," said journalist
Ertuğrul Mavioğlu, who co-authored a book on Ergenekon with Şık. He dismisses
the charges that the pair were implicated in the conspiracy. "I know that what
they did was just reporting."

Şener is a reporter for the daily Milliyet who received the
International Press Institute's "World Press
Freedom Hero" award last year for a book on the murder of
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink
in 2007.

Both men have been in pre-trial custody since their arrest
on the vague charge of "membership of the presumed terrorist organization
Ergenekon" although details have not been formally communicated to their
lawyers and families. Much of what is known of the prosecution case has come in
the form of leaks to the media.

Many independent journalists acknowledge that, in the
beginning, the Ergenekon probe did unearth a plot against the AKP, which was
chipping away at the nationalist and secular political legacy beloved of the
military. But four years and some 500 arrests later, the investigation has lost
focus and is now seen as an AKP weapon against critical journalists. Since
2009, authorities have also been investigating another plot to overthrow the
government known as "Sledgehammer."

It's hard to know how many journalists are behind bars since
the arrests began. CPJ wrote
the justice minister this week seeking clarification. Several Turkish
journalists groups put the figure at more than 60, which would make Turkey the
world's leading jailer of journalists ahead of China and Iran. This figure
includes many Kurdish journalists whom the authorities say are jailed for
political activism. The independent communication network Bianet put the number held directly for
their work at five
as of March this year.

"The government is running a very successful PR campaign and
claiming to follow the policies of an advanced democracy," said Mavioğlu. "Şık
has shown this is not true."

Independent Turkish journalists have always had to tread
carefully when reporting on national security and the outlawed Kurdish Workers
Party (PKK)
but the Ergenekon probe and the Kemalists' reaction to it have put all
reporters under great pressure.

"All journalists take precautions," said Ismail Saymaz, a
reporter with the liberal daily Radikal.
"They speak as little as possible on the phone, reformat their computers, clean
out their files, and destroy compromising data."

"Lots of journalists are wiretapped," the Journalists
Platform's president Tınç agrees.

Reporters from both sides of the political divide are also
subjected to legal harassment.

"The media are split between pro-and anti-government," said
journalist Nadire Mater of Bianet, which reports on press freedom and human
rights. "Police are leaking information [about Ergenekon] then journalists are
prosecuted for publishing it. There is a power struggle."

The government can use a panoply of press laws, defamation,
and national security legislation to chill meddlesome reporters. But the same
laws are available to the Kemalist prosecutors and judges that have hung on to
positions of influence inside the judicial branch.

Press groups estimate there are currently between 4,000 and
5,000 cases open against journalists of all political hues. Nearly every
reporter I interviewed had received summonses from prosecutors over their work.

Hanım Büşra Erdal reports on Ergenekon and Sledgehammer for Zaman, a moderate Islamist daily close to the
Gülen movement.

"Covering these stories, there have been about 75 cases
brought against me," she said. Many cases are opened under Article 285 of the
Criminal Code (reporting on a confidential criminal investigation) and Article
288 (attempting to influence trial proceedings). "The prosecutor has asked for
sentences from four and a half to 15 years," she said. If convicted, however,
she notes that, so far, courts have suspended prison terms for journalists in
these cases for five years; but they have to serve that sentence plus any new
sentence if they "re-offend" within those five years. "This is battle for power
in the high judiciary between the deep state and the government," she added.

"It's all about intimidation," said Radikal's Saymaz, who
has 11 cases outstanding against him. Journalists have to hire a lawyer and
show up for interminable court hearings. "You lose the courage to write these
stories," he said.

Reporters joke that they can't criticize either Atatürk or
Muhammad, but mainstream media journalists also face commercial as well as political
pressures. Media ownership is highly concentrated. Some journalists complain
that mainstream newspapers and their sister TV news channels are filled with
columnists and opinion rather than robust reporting.

"Small newspapers take on the government but big newspapers
don't criticize the government," said Tınç.

"The AKP has
transformed the situation and now the government controls the media," said
Ruşen Çakır, a journalist for NTV and
columnist in the daily Vatan.
"They are imposing their agenda on the media. If the media owner tries to
resist they punish them, especially with taxes."

He was referring to the $2.5 billion in unpaid taxes and
penalties that the government demanded from Doğan Media, Turkey's biggest media
group in 2009. Doğan has since sold several titles as part of a settlement.

The result of all these pressures is a lack of investigative
reporting in many big news outlets, self-censorship, and under-reporting in
areas such as finance, energy, and the environment.

The other big gap in reporting in many Turkish-language
media has been and remains the Kurdish issue--in part because of anti-terrorism
laws that prevent much coverage. Kurdish journalists are very active in the
south and southeast of the country, home to most Kurds, but complain of
constant assaults and detention by security forces and legal harassment by
politically motivated prosecutors.

The AKP government has made some conciliatory gestures
toward the Kurds, such as allowing greater use of the Kurdish language in
education and media, but nevertheless Kurdish journalists are beset by
restrictions. Journalists are no longer killed as they were in the 1990s, but
Kurdish news outlets are still closed down by authorities and employees
detained.

"Before they shot you; now they shut you down," said Ramazan
Pelegöz, Istanbul-based news coordinator of the Kurdish Dicle news agency. He said reporters and photographers are often
arrested covering protests and demonstrations in the Kurdish region; they are
also denied access to government and security forces officials and information.

The biggest complaint, however, is the ongoing use of
anti-terrorism laws to muzzle Kurdish journalism.

"They have turned journalists into criminals," said Eren
Keskin, co-chief editor of the pro-Kurdish dailyÖzgür Gündem. "Anything you write can
be twisted into 'making propaganda for a terrorist organization' or insulting
the military....or incitement to hatred," she said.

It's ironic that as the AKP consolidates its grip on power
it should risk tarnishing its image among the Western democracies that it wants
to join by curbing press freedom. Erdogan is popular among many ordinary Turks
who have seen living standards rise. His party took more than 50 percent of the
vote in parliamentary elections last month for a third term, capping a
referendum victory six months earlier on constitutional reform. Turkey's
supporters in the EU hoped these popular endorsements would accelerate the
accession process but just this month the Council of Europe's commissioner for
human rights, Thomas Hammarberg, called Turkey out on its media freedom record
in a critical report.

"There is really an authoritarian, totalitarian government
now in Turkey in terms of freedom of speech and human rights," said
communications professor Esra Arsan, of Istanbul Bilgi University. But people
don't seem bothered by this, she laments. "These are good economic times."

Robert Mahoney is CPJ’s deputy executive director. He writes and speaks on press freedom, and has led CPJ missions to global hot spots from Iraq to Sri Lanka. He worked as a reporter, bureau chief and editor for Reuters around the world. Follow him on Twitter @RobertMMahoney.

Comments

I don't agree with most of the comments in this article. It has become very fashionable these days to go with the anti-AKP circles in Turkey and blame the Erdogan administration with pressuring the press. It is a telling incident that one of the famous anchor women of NTV left her channel writing a public letter to Erdogan and criticizing him for undue pressure on the media. It was later discovered that she had already made arrangements with the Turkish station of Al Jazeera to be an anchor woman with high transfer fees. Even though she was going to a more or less pro-AKP media outlet, she accused Erdogan with intimidating the press.

Rusen Cakir doesn't mention his boss' non-media enterprises and controversial business tactics because it will expose long standing coalitions his boss has been involved.

Mahoney makes us believe that no media outlet can criticize the government today in Turkey whereas major dailies like Hurriyet, Milliyet, Vatan, and Cumhuriyet very rarely publish an article that openly praises the AKP government. Most of the columnists in these newspapers make a habit of openly calling pro-AKP columnists sycophants.

No, no, Robert. What your friends like Ferai Tinc, Rusen Cakir or others tell you is not correct. In fact, we are being relieved of the manipulative news media in Turkey, which mixed themselves in dirty politics very badly in the past.

@Selime Sen: In your post, I see absolutely no position on the fact that 60 journalists are jailed by Turkey as a top scorer of imprisoned journalists and the member of the Council of Europe's 47 countries with the highest number of judgments by the European Court of Human Rights. And you relate not to the highly critical report on Turkey about freedom of expression and medie freedom by Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights in Council of Europe.
Thanks to Robert Mahogany for a very interesting and richly detailed post about the reality of working journalists in Turkey. As a journalist in Mesopotamia Broadcast, broadcasting the Danish Kurdish television station ROJ TV, we live daily with a non-existent freedom of speech and press freedom in Turkey.

@ lillian simonsen In your post I see absolutely no position on the fact that ROJ TV is a TV channel linked to PKK which is listed as a terrorist organization internationally by a number of states and organizations, including the United States.

The PKK was designated as a significant foreign narcotics trafficker by the U.S. Department of the Treasury for its more than two decades-long participation in drug trafficking. The drug trade is one of the PKK's most lucrative criminal activities. PKK is also one of the biggest crime organizations on human trafficking in Europe.

It should be a pity for Mahoney that his comments on Turkey are gladly welcomed by a member of this organization living in 'Denmark'

As a foreigner living in Istanbul for over a decade, I find Mahoney's analysis on Turkish press as a sign of ignorance. Mahoney should have spent more time and should have spoken with more people to understand what really is going on in Turkey.

The PM's (Tayyip Erdoğan's) nephew was caught with 50 kg of illegal drugs (cocaine etc...), and was found unguilty because he claimed that he actually "uses" the drugs, and not sells them. 50kg of cocaine is probably enough for 50 people throughout all their lives!
How many newspaper could write about this, and followed the case? One or two tried, and they were called by "someone" from the government to stop.
Now, is this freedom?
The press' working conditions are much worse than military coupe times. The PM openly and apparently the threatens the newspaper and TV owners (he said "control your writers, or..."). I'm a normal citizen, but even I'm scared when I'm writing my ideas in forums.

@ Ertan, where do I get to read on this nephew of ERdogan caught with 50 kg drugs. Provide an evidence to this or stop accusing people with unfounded accusations and lies.

Look at the newspapers like Sozcu, Cumhuriyet, Posta, Vatan, Yenicag, etc. Do you see any positive news and articles on the AKP government in these papers? No, none, zero! These newspapers are able to freely criticize the government every day saying that Turkey fares worst in terms of freedom of press. What a striking example of inconsistency is this.. You criticize the government every day, nothing happens to you, and you come back and accuse the government with pressuring the media.. I love it. Robert Mahoney should be proud of who he is aligned with.

How about the fact that the Commissioner for Human Rights in Council of Europe has been forced to write such a sharp and direct report on Turkey?

Did you ever read the report?
Do you respect the Council of Europe?

This year Turkey scored the highest number of judgments by the ECHR of 47 members?

16,482 human rights violations in the Southeast of Turkey has been registered by the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) in the first half of 2011 has already recorded

Hold you now to the topic - Robert Mahoney's blog is about serious breaches of the conventions Turkey has signed to comply with and then the state arrests one journalist after another, like any other people in Turkey who are in opposition to the government.

And you talk about a snotty young man who have too much coke in his nose! When people in the same country do not even have basic rights?